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Friday, December 11, 2015

Christmas Door Card - PixScan/Scanner Silhouette Tutorial

Come and knock on my door...

We've been waiting for you...

Who remembers Three's Company? I don't know why but this picture below reminded me of the theme song and now it's stuck in my head, haha!

Anyways, I'm excited to share with you this really simple yet elegant door card I made using Fleurette Bloom files with one of her latest Stamp sets! The card comes from Christmas Memories SVG Kit and the stamps come from the Peace on Earth Stamp set.

Not a lot of colouring required for this project, which makes it easy to whip up a bunch of these! In case you are wondering I used my Spectrum Noir Markers, gold embossing powder and VersaMark ink.

Take a closer look.
Aren't those stamps amazing!?!
For those of you interested, Fleurette has here Stamps Sets on SALE right now!

As many of you know I am a Silhouette girl. I love my Silhouette Cameo! It does pretty much everything I have ever wanted it to do. So when the PixScan mat for the Silhouette first came out I had to have it. The results I had when I first used it were disappointing. Some of the cuts were OK, but many were way off, so for a longest time I hadn't used it. Then through a FB Group I heard of this fantastic machine that simply scanned an image and cut it out, the Brother Scan and Cut. So for a while now I have been debating on whether or not to buy myself one as I am starting to get a little more into stamping... damned the Stamping Enabler Group, lol! After doing a bunch of research on it, it would cost me about $400 to get one to me here in Canada, plus version 2 is not available here yet! That's quite the investment!

Well, I am happy to say that I saved myself $400 by giving the PixScan mat another try! This time instead of using my phone to take the picture I actually used a scanner, and OMG what a difference that made! You see when you use a camera, there is a high chance that the image will have a slight angle to it, distorting the image once imported. You need a flat image, because a slight angle will make a lot of difference in the cut you get! Lucky for me, last weekend at Costco they had a promotion on the HP Envy 4522 for $39.99! This thing prints, scans and copies... How can I go wrong with that! All I needed was the scanner, and for $40 I was SOLD!

So once I figured out how to install the scanner, the rest was easy! Here is what I did next...

Stamped my images and load them on to the PixScan mat (Use a permanent, waterproof ink if you plan on colouring them to avoid bleeding).

Open the Silhouette Studio, click on the PixScan Image Icon.

Place the PixScan Mat into your your scanner, ensuring that at least one of the sides of the registration marks are in the scanning field. (Don't worry if your mat is bigger than the scanner. The silhouette will stitch the two images together later.)

Select Import from Scanner.

Next, select your source and then Import the image (I used the WIA- option), click Scan.

Now wait for it to transfer the data.

You should now have an image that shows half a page loaded on a PixScan mat on the screen.

If your image is larger, you may need to follow the next step. If all your image was imported ignore it and go to step 10.

Flip your PixScan Mat around and scan the other side of the image, again ensuring that the other registration marks are in the scan field. Repeating steps 5-7. Once your image imports the whole image should look like it was stitched together.

Now all that is left to do is trace your images, select the edges you want to cut out, and if you want some white space around them you will need to create the offsets of your images. Delete any unwanted cutlines.

Load your PixScan mat into the Silhouette.

Finally, send to Silhouette to cut it out. Your machine will detect the registration marks and begin cutting!

Here are my results.
SO, SO, SO, happy with it! Look at those perfect outlines/offsets! No more spending money on coordinating dies for stamps! YAY!!! And the best part was that I only spent $40!!!

Well I hope you liked my Christmas Card Door Card and that this post has helped anyone debating on whether or not to purchase the Scan and Cut machine... If you have a Silhouette, I would suggest you give your PixScan Mat another try using a scanner vs a camera. You might just end up saving a ton of money!

If you have been inspired to recreate any of my crafts or want to share my FREEbies please link back to my blog! Please give credit appropriately. All my ideas are my own unless otherwise stated. All my FREEbie files are for personal use and not for resale or redistribution! :)